


The Rags of Time: I

by xpityx



Series: The Rags of Time [1]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-06
Packaged: 2019-05-03 00:04:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14556510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpityx/pseuds/xpityx
Summary: Thomas could admit to himself that if he had truly known of the horrors that awaited him at Bethlem and beyond he would not have asked his lovers to run. He was glad therefore that he had not been cognisant of what the future held for him, that he had been granted one last act of courage.





	The Rags of Time: I

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a fluffy Charles Vanes lives AU but it got a little out of hand... There's two more parts and an epilogue to go all of which is about 85% finished so the wait won't be too long for the rest of it. 
> 
> This is so self-indulgent, I can’t even tell you. Also, I have at least four more Black Sails fics in the works.

 

Years of hard labour had worn Thomas’ hands to calloused stone. As he worked in the fields, he thought of the pumice that Miranda had often used to soften her feet so that they would not snag on her stockings: she’d had such beautiful feet. He had cried a little the day he realised that he could remember the exact rhythm of her walk, but not the sound of her voice. He still dreamt sometimes that she had been restored to him, but when he ran his hands down her arms his callouses snagged and tore at her skin and blood ran over his hands, thick as stew and steaming. He was not sure if he hated or loved those dreams, because at least she was with him. 

 

Thomas could admit to himself that if he had truly known of the horrors that awaited him at Bethlem and beyond he would not have asked his lovers to run. He was glad therefore that he had not been cognisant of what the future held for him, that he had been granted one last act of courage. Sometimes he looked at the guards in the plantation, at the walls that surrounded him, and wondered where all his courage had gone. He used to look at his shirt when he was in Bethlem, twisted into a rope around his hands and wonder the same thing. 

 

He rested his hands in the small of his aching back for a second, and caught the eye of Mr Jonathan Pratt as he worked in the next row along. He nodded and smiled a little, a wry acknowledgement of a recent conversation on what would happen to them when they were too old to work the fields. A lawyer in his old life, Jonathan had been brought here for some transgression that Thomas either did not know or had known and forgotten. He had been in this place for so long that perhaps the world had changed outside these walls and all the laws that they had fallen foul of were no laws longer. Perhaps there was no world. Only dark, endless jungle, and the sugar cane they produced was taken beyond the gates and emptied into the churning sea. 

 

He had stopped long enough for a horsed guard to come and politely request that he continue his work. The horse was pale and gleaming, strong enough to jump the wall where the gate was lowest. He had spent all his bravery merely surviving though, so he bent back to the dark soil. 

 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

  
  


Miranda strayed into his thoughts often. They had been married over ten years on the day he had last seen her, so he had much to draw on. In the beginning he had leaned heavily on the early years of their union, on the delight as they had come to know each other, to learn how well they fit. He had quickly learnt to avoid any memory that included food, as it made the starvation move quicker though his body, but there were a thousand other memories to fall into, each with their own light in which he could dwell. 

 

Thomas did not allow himself think of James beyond a handful of memories he was sure were truth. It was an irony that the memories of which he had most, of Miranda, were left untouched by the condemnation of the hospital physicians, but those of which he had so precious few had been pulled out of him, like a ribbon from under his tongue. 

 

Even now, with Bethlem so many years behind him, it was sometimes hard to separate fact from the fictions he had been told in the grey light of the physicians’ rooms. 

 

Why had James and Miranda not come for him?  _ They must think him dead. _

 

Had he not begged them to come?  _ No he had not, he had told them to run. _

 

Had they plotted this? This horror, so they could be together without him?  _ No never, they had loved him. If they lived, they loved him still. _

 

On and on, like rank water running through a ditch until he sometimes struck at a wall or hard surface to shock himself out of his thoughts. A scorched-earth policy was sometimes best when it came to the traps that had been set within his mind. Although he had only been a year at Bethlem, nine year’s distance had given him enough perspective to see the damage that had been done. Sometimes it was subtle: a lost thought where he had to be called back to the now by a fellow prisoner, sometimes, less so. He was content though, he felt. He would die here, by sickness or injury, and then he would take the last journey that all men must make into God’s holy light, where his lovers awaited him. 

  
  


<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

  
  


The days were largely the same in the plantation, marked by the grinding heat of planting and the savagery of the boiling house during harvest. Only Sundays were a day of rest, where Thomas argued with the hypocrisy of the local pastor within the relative safety of his own mind. 

 

Twenty-seven men laboured beside him today, as two of them had a fever and had been prescribed bed rest from Mr Aarons, their physician. Of course, he worked the plantation the same as Thomas. He had been brought to Savannah some years before Thomas’ own arrival, allowing Mr. Oglethorpe to no doubt congratulate himself on both the saving of another soul and the provision of aid to his wards, in a feat of the labyrinthine hypocrisy that he seemed endlessly capable of. 

 

The light of the place had been a shock after Bethlem. He was sure his eyesight would be ruined forever after squinting in the dark for so long, but eventually it seemed the only sense not affected by his time at Bethlem. It had taken many months for him not to flinch outwardly at an unexpected sound, and months more for him to remained untouched in the interior of his mind by the same. It took over a year before his strength was equal to the labour required of him, and he considered himself lucky that he had only lost two fingers to a machete in all the years he had been there. Aarons himself had a terrible burn down the side of his face and two of the men had lost a hand to the mills. Jake, the former slave who served as the boiler and clayer, said that it was the reduced hours that they worked compared to the slave plantations that had saved them from more serious injuries. He told horrific stories of men and women working through the night during harvest season, of people dragged into the mills, screaming and alive as their limbs were crushed. Thomas was no stranger to horror, but he had added a new nightmare to his repertoire that month. 

 

They received a pittance of a wage for their labour, out of which they clothed themselves and bought small amenities such as a shaving blade and comb. Mr Oglethorpe had struggled to replace their last Boiler, knowledge of sugar production being somewhat thin on the ground among the men he took from London, so he had finally bought Jake from a distant plantation. He was apparently not fool enough to think he could treat their single black guest in a manner different to those toiling around him, so he received the same wage and worked the same hours as the other men on the 40-acre plantation. Of course, Mr Oglethorpe was taking the fee he had paid for Jake out of his wages, so it had been up to the men to make sure he had adequate clothing and shoes. 

 

Thomas often reminded himself that he too had reached the same depths that Mr Oglethorpe now occupied. That he’d dreamed of freedom for the pirates of Nassau, who had thieved and murdered their way through the Caribbean, but the thought of offering freedom to slaves had never crossed his mind as he’d sat in London, congratulating himself on his clear-eyed benevolence. 

 

<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

  
  


There was nothing extraordinary about the day: the sky was a deadly blue and the heat built steadily throughout the morning. He took his break with the other men, sat on rough tables in the shade of the barn, drinking as much water as he could before he went back out into the fields. 

 

He was mindlessly tilling the earth next to Jake when he heard his name being called by a guard. He was a little slow today, his back troubling him more than usual. When he finally turned there was a man stood five feet from him in the groove between the freshly dug soil, dressed head to toe in black. A man he knew. Had known, at least.

 

He thought for one moment to deny the veracity of the moment, to turn away. In the beginning James had come to him a hundred times, a thousand times. Each night for the first years of his imprisonment he had been rescued by his lovers, and each night he had welcomed that rescue as truth, only to wake alone in his cell. Here, again, a vision sent to him: an older, wearier James, heavy with grief.

 

He remained hopeful though, despite his many years of suffering, and he stepped forward with welcome in his heart to greet his love once again. 

  
  


<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

  
  


<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

 

Thomas helped him bathe and dress his wounds, and frowned over his bruises, but said very little. He smiled whenever he looked up and met James’ gaze, and accepted his kisses sweetly, but remained quiet. They fell asleep in a narrow cot at the end of a long dormitory, James asleep the second his head hit the pillow. There was a curtain which provided some privacy, but Thomas seemed to think nothing of them sharing the space so he did not question it.

 

When he awoke, it was to Thomas crying quietly beside him in the narrow cot.

 

“Thomas?” James’ heart froze, a litany running though his mind of all the truths that he would wish to shield Thomas from, for a little while longer at least.

 

“It’s him, it’s him” he was saying, over and over like a prayer. 

 

James bent his head over his lover and fought his own tears for a second. There would be time later, but now Thomas needed him.

 

“I am, I am here.” He pulled him around until he was wrapped in his arms. He rocked him a little, at a loss but willing to do anything to calm him.

 

After some minutes he began to quieten.

 

“Thomas?”

 

“I’m sorry my love, I just, I do not think I had fully understood that you are _ here. _ ”

 

James took a second to find his voice, “I will not leave you, not ever again, even if you banished me from your presence I would follow you begging for the scraps of your attention.”

 

“Never.” Thomas kissed him fiercely once, then again. “Never.”

 

They lay in each other’s arms for a while before Thomas spoke again, “Where is Miranda? Where is my wife?”

  
  


<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

  
  


Thomas had been silent and pale through James’ story. He had reduced it to its bare bones, he told himself that it was so that Thomas would know the truth as quickly as possible, but perhaps it was so he could conceal the blood on his hands a little longer. James had shed some tears as he told of Peter’s betrayal, of the moment of her death. Thomas had said nothing, just stared past James, past the walls that enclosed them and their grief. 

 

Finally, he spoke, “They told me she was dead, of course, that you both were. But when I saw you, it never occurred to me that one could be restored to me without the other.” He seemed to collapse in on himself then and, although he still did not cry, he moaned: a low, frightening sound that more than anything so far, spoke of the changes that the last eleven years had wrought on him. James went to him of course, but he remained hunched over on the bed, hands snarled in the cloth beneath them, so James cried for him. For them both. 

 

When they eventually emerged from the cot, it was to a summons from the Overseer, one Mr Oglethorpe. They took a hearty breakfast with him, and James was aware that his table manners were sorely lacking, but he was too hungry to care. It was only Thomas’ calm gaze that prevented him from jumping the table to break the idiot’s neck, as he rambled on about his own benevolence and charity. He seemed ill at ease, either due to James’ reputation or his knowledge of the nature of their relationship, but he apparently had enough self-preservation instincts not to mention either. 

 

It seemed a given that James would work in the fields, but only when he was well enough, Thomas had interjected, and Mr. Oglethorpe had been quick to agree to this addendum to the apparent terms of his ownership. 

 

James was sure he would be suitably angry about being fucking sold at some point in the near future, but at the moment he was reeling from all that had occurred. God,  _ Thomas _ .

 

As they walked back to the dormitory, apparently for James to see the physician, he kept glancing at Thomas whilst he walked, taking in the more obvious differences: his wide shoulders; his sun darkened skin;  the burn scars that pitted his forearms and the two missing fingers. He was not brave enough to take Thomas’ hand - Captain Flint, the most dangerous pirate in the Bahamas, not brave enough - but he thought he might be, some day soon.

 

The physician prescribed three days bed rest and then prescribed the same for Thomas’ nerves. A good man, evidently, and James nodded his thanks to him as he left. They sat side by side on the bed, and James finally took Thomas’ hand in his. 

 

“Thomas…”

 

“I know,” Thomas cut him off, “I know we have much to talk about, but at the moment I am feeling very much the coward and I would prefer it if we put it off for a little while longer.” He looked James in the eye then, and James wasn’t sure why he could think that he would deny him anything.

 

“Of course.” He pressed a kiss to the side of Thomas’ head, then bent to remove his boots so they could sit more comfortably on the bed. Thomas did the same, then curled into his side. God, he loved him. It was a pain both sweet and terrible, because he knew now the full extent of what he would do for the love of this man. And now, to be reunited with him. It was a dream perhaps, and he still in the jungle on Skellington Island, his flesh rotting in a shallow grave. 

 

“James?” Thomas asked.

 

“I’m here,” he kissed him briefly, “I’m here with you.”

  
  


<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

  
  


By the third day of rest, James felt as if he was starting to acclimatize a little. It had always taken him a few days to move mentally from The Walrus to dry land, and this transition was somewhat more bewildering. Even during the first two days, part of him had been keeping track of the guards he saw, their mealtimes and the other men. He felt more and more himself as he watched and learned the rhythm of the place where Thomas had been imprisoned for so long. 

 

Thomas though had become more and more agitated, asking sharp questions about Miranda and the circumstances leading up to her death. James was struggling to keep his patience at being forced to relive her last moments over and over, but Thomas seemed to be looking for something in the story, some small detail that would make the loss make sense, perhaps. He was now pacing up and down the empty barracks, six steps forward and six steps back. It was a not even close to the full length of the room, and James had the uncomfortable feeling that he was witnessing Thomas pace the length and breadth of his Bethlem cell.

 

“My wife, they took from me my wife _.  _ The Lord is gracious, and forgave mankind for the death of his son... but  _ my wife _ .” Thomas paused in his pacing as his voice broke a little. “How could I could forgive that?” 

 

James could stand it no longer and caught his hands between his own, stilling him, though he could not think of a single word of comfort. Thomas had been married to Miranda for ten years when he had been taken, and James had had the same amount of time with her when she had died, he realised. 

 

“And you killed him? You killed Peter?” Thomas was asking, voice dark. 

 

James nodded, a little wary of the hate in his voice. 

 

“Tell me.”

 

So he told him again the details of Abigail, and Charles Town, except this time Thomas demanded to know who Billy Bones was, about Charles Vane, Eleanor Guthrie and John Silver. 

 

“What is it?” Thomas interrupted. He had stopped pacing, and now loomed over where James sat on the edge of their bunk.

 

“What is what?”

 

“When you said that last name, there was something in your voice.”

 

James remained silent, unable to think of a way to explain either the span of his friendship with John Silver or the empty spaces where trust should have been. He didn’t yet have the words for the betrayal that had bloomed in that void. He should have known somehow, should have seen the tide turning. 

 

“My love, if you took someone to your bed, I would not…”

 

“No! No. He was my friend, and he betrayed me. That is all.” James scoffed at himself, “but what is one more betrayal to you and I?”

 

“I think it seems like it was a lot, to you,” Thomas said quietly, and James had to look away at the compassion in his voice.

 

“Another time, perhaps.” Thomas said, finally, “Tell me again what Miranda said to Peter before she was murdered. Tell me her words exactly.”

 

He did. He told him of the farce of the trial, and the bloody rescue, of the smoke and confusion, and the sound of the great guns as they’d pounded the city into ruin. 

 

“You honoured her last wish.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Thomas was silent, but James knew what it was he struggled with.

 

“I have done worse things since,” he added.

 

“Please, if you would, keep those to yourself a little longer.”

 

The Thomas he had known had been endlessly curious, eager and able to uncover any and all facets one’s psyche and study them from every angle. Not maliciously, only in that he knew his own faults so well, and found such freedom in the knowing, that he could not imagine that anyone around him would want anything less than to have those truths revealed to them. That he had horrors deep enough to now want to leave James’ actions unspoken was an unpleasant shock. 

 

Thomas must have seen something on his face though, as he gave a wan smile and finally sat next to him.

 

“I’m sorry, I know this cannot be easy for you, to find me so changed…”

 

James shook his head.

 

“I cannot fathom having found you at all. If you would have me after… after all the things I have done in your name and Miranda’s, then I would welcome you.”

 

“Of course, there was never any question, my love.” 

 

Thomas took his hand, but remained distant, in some place of grief that James felt that perhaps he did not have a right to intrude into. He thought suddenly of Miranda’s voice in his ear, of her patiently explaining why he must give voice to his needs if he ever expected anyone to meet them. She had been talking about sex, in that particular instance, but he felt he knew what she would want of him now. 

 

“I was ruined over her death.” James admitted, and Thomas turned to him then and pulled him into his arms. 

  
  


<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

  
  


It was his fourth day there and the first of labour. Even his years at sea could not have prepared him for the grinding pain of tilling the earth for nine hours in the heat. He had eaten his evening meal, drank as much water as he could stand, and then collapsed onto Thomas’ bed to scheme. It was clear that the guards were, not careless as such, but comfortable in their roles: perhaps thinking that the sodomites and asylum inmates in their purview were unsuited for rebellion. Well, this sodomite had been the terror of the Caribbean: twelve unsuspecting guards would be nothing to him. Thomas however, had seemed hesitant when he’d started to ask specific questions about their jailer’s habits. 

 

“Do you not want to leave?” he asked, disbelieving. Thomas would not even look at him. 

 

“Not at present, no.” Thomas replied, not even glancing over from where he was removing his boots.

 

“No? What do you mean, ‘ _ no _ ’?”

 

“I know that this is an abhorrent place, run by a man no better than my father, than Peter, but I had never thought that I would leave this place… I never thought there was anything beyond this place… So I merely ask a little time.” James looked beyond his annoyance to see that Thomas’ hand were shaking. He calmed immediately and, almost dizzy with the change in his emotions, gathered his lover to him and carefully took his hands in his.

 

“I don’t understand, Thomas, if you could explain. Please”

 

Thomas would not meet his eyes, but he visibly attempted to quiet his anxiety, “I am aware of the madness of these thoughts, and I am sorry for them, but I cannot rid myself of them.” He paused, and James counselled himself to be patient for once in his damned life, “What if… What if we leave here and escape into the jungle beyond. What if we are successful, but I have dreamt you after all? I dreamt you and Miranda so many times before, why should this be any different? I could not stand it, to be alone in the heat and the dark, for your ghost to abandon me. I would rather stay here, in servitude, with your shade beside me than be free without it.”

 

“Thomas…” James had no idea what to say.

 

“It is alright, my love.” Thomas kissed him gently, “I also know that you  _ are _ here, but I just need a little more time.”

 

“Of course. Of course.” James fought his own nature for a second before he could say what he wished to. “I love you. I love you so much”

 

Thomas smiled, though it was sad. “And I you.”

  
  


<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

  
  


The days stretched into a week, then two. To say the work was difficult was to severely underestimate the monotonous misery of it. He could not even begin to imagine what it would be like in the boiling rooms during the heat of harvest season. His thoughts drifted to Madi sometimes as he worked, and the grief of what John Silver had cost her and her people was a new pain each time. He had not spoken of her to Thomas. He felt he was doing her a disservice by not doing so, but her story was so tied up in John’s that he couldn’t begin to tell it: not yet. God how had he not seen it? How had he not seen how badly John had been slipping? He shook the thoughts away. There would be time to deal with Long John Silver, but it was not now. 

 

So close, they had been so close. He was not arrogant enough to think that there would not be another opportunity for Madi, for the Maroon Queen: they would make opportunities as they had before. It was both Madi and Thomas that gave him the strength to get up each day and pick up his tools. They were both still fighting, each in their own way, so he would continue until Thomas was ready to leave this place, and until both he and Thomas were ready to rejoin the fight. 

 

He had believed once in the inevitability of the walls that separated him from Thomas, and that belief had made it so. Not now though, not after all he had seen, of all he knew was possible. They  _ would _ be free of this place, all of them. That he had once believed that Thomas was beyond his reach was a pain that he had known for more than ten years, to discover that he had been alive all this time, alive and within reach… For all that he hated Captain Flint, he would never have left Thomas to rot in Bethlem. 

  
  


<<>><<>><<>><<>><<>><<>>

  
  


True privacy was difficult to come by, and although they had shared as much intimacy as they could after those first few days, they were still separated from a room full of men by only a thin curtain at night. 

 

Whilst James had been planning their escape, Thomas had apparently been planning for an escape closer to home: he announced that they would claim illness on Sunday morning and hell with the consequences. Which was how he came to be lying alone in bed on a Sunday morning, wondering why Thomas was taking so long to wash this morning. He had his answer when he came back to the side of the bed, looking more than a little nervous and holding out a vial of something yellow-tinged and viscous. Of course James knew what it was or, more accurately, he knew what’s it’s intended use was, but he still could not prevent himself from asking.

 

“What is that?”

 

“I have washed myself in readiness, but I have not prepared fully. I’d like you to do that.”

 

James’ thoughts stuttered to a brief halt. It was not his preferred role, but god he wanted it - to be surrounded by Thomas, to sink into him.

 

“Are you sure?” he asked, just to be certain. 

 

“Yes.” 

 

Then he was undressing, and James cursed himself for a fool when he lost the vial in the bedclothes and had to hunt around for it for a few minutes, while Thomas, the bastard, failed to hide his smirk.

 

Finally he was buried to the hilt, the tight heat almost painful and unfamiliar after so many years. They had only done this a few times in London, and he struggled to find his rhythm at first. Thomas, ever patient, coaxed him into a more comfortable position so they were both able to experience the pleasure of the act. 

 

“Ah! Yes, like that!” Thomas said, head thrown back and one leg held over James’ right arm. James stuttered to a halt, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. He tried to hold back, but a sob escaped him.

 

“Oh my darling.” 

 

Thomas placed his hands on his face and pulled him down for a chaste kiss. 

 

“It is too much?”

 

James couldn’t answer, all of his energy focused on not breaking down further. Thomas slowly and carefully distangled himself and arranged them so that they were lying facing each other. He stroked his hand over James’ shaved head, and spoke quietly of inconsequential musings until James could be still again. 

 

“I’m sorry,” James said, eventually, a little ashamed that he had not been able to predict his breakdown.

 

“Hush, my darling, you have nothing to be sorry about.”

 

They kissed sweetly for a while, until James began to harden again. Thomas opened himself up again, as unabashed in his pleasure as he’d been the first time they’d fucked, so many years ago. He kissed James before seating himself on his cock, quickly finding a rhythm that suited him. They did not last long, unused to such pleasure.

 

Thomas bent over James, getting his breath back under control.

 

“I love you,” James confessed, as if it were the very first time.

 

“And I you,” Thomas replied.

 

“Marry me?” James blurted, unthinking and graceless.

 

Thomas looked shocked then pleased, “if such a thing were possible, I would do so in a heartbeat my love.”

 

James grinned at him.

 

“Pirates do it.”

 

“They…? They do not!” Thomas exclaimed.

 

James laughed a little, “I will have you know that as Captain I officiated two such unions.” 

 

One of which had possibly been only for monetary reasons, but he felt no need to share that particular detail. 

 

Thomas looked at him in open mouthed shock.

 

“Then, I see that I must become a pirate,” he said once he had recovered. 

 

James laughed again, and Thomas smiled.

 

“The dread pirate Thomas.” James said. 

 

Thomas reached to touch his face, infinitely tender. 

 

“Yes,” he replied, “yes.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to [sidewaystime](http://sidewaystime.tumblr.com/) for reminding me that Miranda deserves her space in fandom in general, and in Thomas and James’ hearts specifically, and, as always, thank you to my lovely beta [SlumberousTrash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SlumberousTrash/pseuds/SlumberousTrash).
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://xpityx.tumblr.com/).


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